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<title>Your heart's gonna burn, but you'll learn to let it go by SerotoninUp</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23061253">Your heart's gonna burn, but you'll learn to let it go</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerotoninUp/pseuds/SerotoninUp'>SerotoninUp</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lucifer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, Feels, Ficlet, Grief/Mourning, Love, Post-Season/Series 04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:22:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>700</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23061253</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerotoninUp/pseuds/SerotoninUp</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chloe reflects on life without Lucifer.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Your heart's gonna burn, but you'll learn to let it go</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chloe surprises everyone by not falling apart after he leaves.</p><p>It hurts, of course. She cries herself to sleep more often than not in those first few weeks, and spends lots of time cuddling Trixie, reading new books and watching their favorite movies. She turns down the lieutenant's offer of a week off, needing the distraction of work.</p><p>She suffers through Dan's rude remarks regarding Lucifer's untrustworthy character. If she weren't in the know, she might have thought those things, too. And eventually, Amenadiel gives Dan the talk, with some show-and-tell for good measure, and Dan's behavior around her shifts to perpetual, barely-contained astonishment. Discovering the annoyingly charming club owner who'd hung around with your ex-wife for the last few years was the actual Devil will do that a person, she supposes.</p><p>Ella keeps her distracted with tribe nights, shopping trips, and new adventures - an escape room one weekend, axe-throwing another. At Chloe's request, Maze teaches her how to fight, to Trixie's utter delight; they spend hours practicing in the living room, sparring until sweat drenches Chloe's skin and her muscles scream for relief. On those nights, sleep overtakes her the moment she falls into bed, and if she dreams of him, she never remembers in the morning.</p><p>Linda helps the most; being the Devil's therapist gives her a unique window into all of those inexplicable behaviors that so puzzled Chloe over the years. Chloe spends an evening drunk at Lux when Linda reveals that Lucifer died more than once to protect her. She spends an entire weekend stone-cold wasted on Linda's sofa when she learns of her own miraculous origins. Linda talks her through the existential breakdown, and Chloe eventually decides God's intentions are irrelevant. She loves Lucifer because he is a good man, and God certainly had no hand in that.</p><p>When she misses him, she visits the penthouse. She sleeps in his bed, wrapped in the embrace of luxurious sheets. She sits at his piano, rests her fingertips atop the silent keys, and sips at his expensive alcohol. She browses his library, astonished at the number of rare books and handwritten manuscripts spanning every era of human history. Sometimes, she finds clever observations or humorous commentary in the margins, written in a careful, elegant hand.</p><p>After a few months, the lieutenant assigns her a new partner. Gary is a competent detective, respectful of her seniority and happy to let her take the lead on their cases. He invites her out for drinks, and she declines.</p><p>Ella brings a friend to tribe night; Nora soon becomes a fixture of their evenings out. Chloe watches them exchange nervous smiles and tentative touches. Nora offers to give Chloe's number to her brother Sam - he's single and cute, according to Ella. Chloe declines.</p><p>The anniversary of Lucifer's departure approaches. Linda cautions her against spending the day alone and reminds her to take advantage of her support group, warning her about the dangers of wallowing in one's own grief, of allowing oneself to stagnate. Moving forward is part of the healing process, she says.</p><p>Chloe spends the night at the penthouse. Standing on the balcony, looking up into the midnight sky, she almost believes that no time has passed, that Lucifer left only moments ago. She closes her eyes and remembers his hand on her cheek, the words he murmured so softly to her.</p><p>
  <em>It was you, Chloe.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It always has been.</em>
</p><p>Her friends mean well, she knows. They want to see her happy. But to them, moving forward is synonymous with moving away - away from the past, away from her yearning, away from <em>him</em>. And Chloe wonders how to explain that she will consider no forward path unless he walks it with her. She is not wallowing. She is not stagnant. She simply holds her heart in stasis; she knows who it belongs to now, and it isn't her - hasn't been her for a long time.</p><p>And only time separates him from her, an easily traversed path made of minutes and hours and days and years. When she reaches its inevitable end, he'll be waiting for her, and she'll give him her heart, because it is his.</p><p>It always has been.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The title for this fic comes from the lyrics to "Summer Sucks" by Shallows. Thanks for reading &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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